How to Install LUTs in Premiere

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How to Install LUTs in Premiere

View more about how to install LUTs in Premiere and do professional video color grading in several clicks. Give your clips a film or cinematic color correction easy and fast.

how to install luts in premiere

How to Install LUTs in Premiere Pro?

There are several ways of how to install LUTs in Premiere Pro, but I found the following method the easiest one.

Installing LUT on Mac

STEP 1: Open a new search window. Go to Library / Application Support / Adobe / Common / LUT

STEP 2: Find there the “Creative” folder and open it. If it does not exist, create it.

STEP 3: Copy the LUT files here. You need to copy separate files, not a folder.

STEP 4: Restart Premiere Pro. Now, LUTS should be available in the pop-up list on the Creative tab of the Lumetri interface.

Installing LUT on Windows

STEP 1: To install LUT, you need to move files from LUTs to the Premiere Pro folder. By default, it is C: \ Program Files \ Adobe \ Adobe Premiere Pro CC [Version] \ Lumetri \ LUTs \ Creative

STEP 2: Restart Premiere Pro (if it was opened), open the Color panel, Lumetri Color, Creative tab and find your Adobe Premiere LUTs in the drop-down list.

How to Open LUTs without Installing?

browse luts in adobe premiere

If you need to apply LUTs once, then you can skip the installation process and use them directly.

STEP 1: Open Premiere Pro, click on the Color tab / Lumetri Color / Basic Correction.

STEP 2: You will see the “Input LUT” button with the clickable word “None” next to it.

STEP 3: Find the necessary LUT on the computer and open it. Here you can adjust the white balance, tone, highlights/shadows and more, if necessary.

In such a way you can load only one LUT at a time, and when you load another LUT, the previous one disappears.

How to Create LUTs?

Sometimes the LUTs you find on the web don’t satisfy your needs and vision of how the videos should look. In this case, I suggest you creating LUTs on your own. There are three 3 to do it.

Method 1 - Using Adobe Premiere Pro

STEP 1: Open Premiere Pro, load any video into it and go to the Color tab / Lumetri Color.

STEP 2: Perform video color correction, first alter the basic settings, then the creative and the Curve.

STEP 3: Find the “Lumetri Color” panel heading at the top. There will be four strips next to this heading. Click on it.

STEP 4: Go to the “Export .cube” button. Choose a place to save the file. You can save it immediately to the LUTs folder for permanent use:

export cube in adobe premiere

For Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CC [Version]\Lumetri\LUTs\Creative

For MacOS: Library / Application Support / Adobe / Common / LUT So, you have LUT Premiere file. You can import it into any program that supports .cube files.

Method 2 - Using Adobe Lightroom

This method is suitable if apart from the video editing you are engaged in photography and have Lightroom. In my opinion, it is the longest and most complex approach, but it gives more opportunities for color correction.

STEP 1: Download and install free IWLTBAP LUT Generator software.

STEP 2: Unzip the archive and run the program for the necessary operating system. At the same time download the Neutral-125.png which you will use for further operations.

STEP 3: Open Premiere Pro, select the necessary frame on the timeline and take a screenshot.

take a screenshot in adobe premiere

STEP 4: Open Lightroom, import the screenshot into the library and Neutral-125.png.

STEP 5: Click on the screenshot and make the color correction for this frame. You can’t fine-tune Clarity, Detail, Lens Corrections, Transform and Effects in this image, since it will not be applied to the LUT, as only the color information and related actions are recorded in this file.

color correction in lightroom

STEP 6: Next, press Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + C, copy all the settings from the processed image and apply them to Neutral-125.png Ctrl (Cmd) + Shift + V.

STEP 7: Export the image you get with a PPI value equal to 72.

STEP 8: Open IWLTBAP LUT Generator, click Convert to CUBE, look for the exported Neutral-125.png file.

STEP 9: Go back to Premiere Pro, create a new Adjustment Layer. Move it to the timeline, stretch it along the necessary fragments of the material and go to the Color workspace.

create a new adjustment layer

STEP 10: Select the Adjustment Layer on the timeline, open the Creative tab, use the “Browse ...” to find the file with the “.cube” extension and use it. Done!

Method 3 - Using Adobe Photoshop

If it seems difficult for you to create free LUTs for Lightroom, the method with Photoshop is twice quicker.

STEP 1: Take a screenshot of the video for which you want to make LUTs. Open this screenshot in Photoshop.

STEP 2: You can work with the image only on the Adjustment Layer (Window / Correction), all other changes to LUTs will not be applied.

create luts in photoshop

STEP 3: After the color correction, you need to export the file: File / Export / Look Up Table. Choose the .cube format, so you can add LUTs to Premiere and use them in this software.

STEP 4: Choose the quality. I recommend 256 if your computer can handle it, otherwise export will take a lot of time.

STEP 5: Select the folder to save your files. You can immediately select the Premiere Pro LUTs folder:

For Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CC [Version]\Lumetri\LUTs\Creative

For MacOS: Library / Application Support / Adobe / Common / LUT

Free LUTs for Adobe Premiere Pro

If you do not want to spend time creating LUTs on your own or all paid photo LUTs you saw on the net are either of poor quality or change nothing, here is my own set of LUTs for Premiere Pro.

Teal and Orange LUTs

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Download Free LUTS

With these LUTs, your summer holiday videos will look more attractive. Warm tones, contrast, slight matte effect and blue saturation make these tools the best LUTs for beach or travel videos.

Free Cinematic LUTs

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Download Free LUTS

This set contains 10 LUTs which you can often see in clips on YouTube. Our guys from FixThePhoto selected the best colors to give your videos the cinematic effect.

LUTs for Color Grading

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Download Free LUTS

I think you watched promo videos from GoPro or DJI and noticed that their clips have undergone professional color correction that causes the “WOW” effect and encourages users to run to the nearby store to buy their products.

To make your videos so catchy and effective, you only need to download LUTs Color Grading from FixThePhoto and you won’t believe your eyes that you have shot such a masterpiece.


Ann Young

Hi there, I'm Ann Young - a professional blogger, read more

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